Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Does this mean I'm not a purist?

The zen garden at Ginkakuji, Kyoto, Japan

I've been reading a lot about Japanese and Zen gardens of late.

The ancient Japanese masters taught that a garden should "be naturally clean like a forest glade, but not aggressively neat." "A boy or an old man," they said, "was best entrusted with the sweeping and cleaning" of a garden, "because they would not be too painstaking. Leaves that have been blown about under the trees and between the stones look interesting and should not be disturbed." *

I have neither old man nor young boy to direct in the tidying of my garden, but I have found that a leaf-blower, used sporadically, has about the same end result in a quarter of the time, with a lot less whining, expense, and aggravation as a whole.





* A Japanese Touch For Your Garden, Kiyoshi Seike
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